Stick and Carrot Measures To Deal With GDPR

A report by Veritas Technologies has said that since 91% of most companies lack a strong data management culture they will be considering a number of ‘carrot and stick’ motivators to bring about the changes needed to help them to implement and comply with GDPR.

GDPR Next Year

The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will come into force on 25th May 2018 and is a regulation designed to set the guidelines going forward for the collection and processing of personal identity information by companies and organisations. The regulation has been designed to make companies take the issue of data protection more seriously, to strengthen the rights that EU citizens have over their data, and to ensure that businesses and other organisations are more transparent in how they store data.

The Challenge

The challenge, according to the Veritas report, which took into account the views of 900 decision-makers across 8 countries, is that even though 31% of those surveyed think their enterprise is already GDPR compliant, only 2% of respondents actually appear to be compliant.

Also, 9 out of 10 companies lack the data management culture that could ensure a greater likelihood of quickly and effectively reaching high levels of GDPR compliance.

Motivation

This challenge, coupled with the limited amount of time before GDPR comes into force is the reason why companies and organisations of all kinds are looking at a variety of carrot and stick methods to drive the cultural and organisational changes needed to get to grips with GDPR going forward.

For example, nearly half of the companies surveyed by Veritas plan to drive the change by adding compliance to employee contracts (47%). Other planned drivers include implementing disciplinary action if the regulation is disobeyed (41%) and educating employees about the benefits of GDPR (40%).

Positive

Despite the obvious penalties and other problems that companies face with non-compliance and data breaches, 95% of decision-makers expected a positive outcome from compliance, and 92% thought they would benefit from having better data hygiene.

This more positive attitude towards the changes that will be necessary for GDPR compliance was also reflected in the views of the 68% of respondents in the Veritas survey who said compliance would give them a better insight into their business, which could help to improve the customer experience, and that compliance would save money.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The Introduction of GDPR is a little over 5 months away, and this in itself is a motivator for many companies and organisations now taking a serious look at exactly how they intend to make the changes they need to be compliant, and / or to re-visit the plans that they have already made to achieve compliance.

GDPR will have a big impact on the culture of companies and organisations and, based on the results of the Veritas report, more education is needed on the tools, processes and policies to support information governance strategies that are necessary to comply with the GDPR requirements. Data management commentators suggest that companies should adopt an automated, classification-based, policy-driven approach to GDPR so that they can meet the regulatory demands within the short time frame available.

Many companies and organisations are now starting to see the positive outcomes and benefits that GDPR compliance will bring such as increased revenues, resulting from improved customer loyalty, heightened brand reputation, and competitive differentiation in the market. There is also now a realisation that companies will prefer to have business relationships with GDPR compliant companies to help ensure their own compliance.

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